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September 10, 2009

Hogan anxious to show improvement against East Carolina

By DAVE MORRISON

MORGANTOWN — To say West Virginia cornerback Brandon Hogan endured a long day last year at East Carolina would be the proverbial understatement of the year.

If cornerbacks are on a island, Hogan must have felt he was all alone with millions of eyes on him as he was burned by Alex Taylor on a 13-yard touchdown pass from Patrick Pinkney. Just like that it was 17-3 East Carolina in t he second quarter. And the Mountaineers wouldn’t recover in a 24-3 loss.

Well, if corners are on that island, they also come equipped with the one thing needed for survival.

An ego.

Not that Hogan is brash. Not at all.

“I didn’t blame myself after the game,” Hogan said. “There were a lot of plays in that game that we messed up on, not just mine. I had a couple of plays that I slipped up on and that was one of them. But I felt like I bounced back from that.”

True. The Mountaineers allowed Jon Williams to score twice, and Pinkney passed for 236 yards, completing 22-of-28 passing.

Not all of those were on Hogan. It just seemed that way.

It was a lesson for Hogan.

But an understandable one. He had only been playing cornerback for just over a month.

“I’d never played the position before,” Hogan said. “The first day of (fall) camp last year, coach (David) Lockwood asked me what I thought about moving to corner. He said he thought I could be a great corner because I had the size (5-foot-11, 188 pounds) and the ability. I said, ‘I don’t know.’”

It didn’t take long for Hogan to realize he wasn’t exactly high on the depth chart at quarterback (his high school position) and he had just 12 catches for 67 yards the year before.

“Once I started making plays and seeing that it wasn’t all that hard, I started to like it more,” Hogan said. “I realized the coaches were looking for me to step up and be the guy.”

Not that it wasn’t all fun and games. The ECU game was a lesson on the field. There was also the mental part of leaving the offensive side of the ball for the less glamorous role of a defensive back. That is, unless you intercept a pass or, as Hogan found out, you get burned.

“Just learning to be a defensive player was the hardest part,” Hogan said. “I was used to scoring touchdowns and getting accolades for scoring. Not being in the limelight took getting used to. And then there is learning the keys, the coverages. It was hard (mentally) but I knew I could do the job.”

And he did, finishing the season fourth on the team with 60 tackles.

Hogan said he definitely expects a different outcome from his position Saturday when the Mountaineers host East Carolina at 3:30 p.m. at Milan Puskar Stadium.

“I have a lot of respect for their quarterback (Pinkney) and their offense as a whole,” Hogan said. “But I also feel like I should be a lot better this time around. I feel like I’m one of the better corners in the (Big East). We didn’t show much (on defense last week in a 33-20 win over Liberty). We’ll probably give them a little more to look at.”

Which includes a new and improved Brandon Hogan.

— E-mail: demorrison@

register-herald.com

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